1. Technical Field
This application relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling beverage bottles having a beverage bottle orientation and positioning arrangement. This application further relates to a device for the accurate positioning and orientation of containers, such as beverage bottles, as described herein.
2. Background Information
A beverage bottling plant for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling bottles with liquid beverage filling material. The filling devices may have an apparatus being configured to introduce a predetermined volume of liquid beverage filling material into the interior of bottles to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage filling material, and the apparatus configured to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material comprising apparatus being configured to terminate the filling of beverage bottles upon liquid beverage filling material reaching said substantially predetermined level in bottles. There may also be provided a conveyer arrangement being configured and disposed to move bottles, for example, from an inspecting machine to the filling machine. Upon filling, a closing station closes filled bottles. There may further be provided a conveyer arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the filling machine to the closing station; as well as a loading station that is configured to load filled bottles into containers, for example, in a six-pack arrangement. There may also be provided a conveyor arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the closing station to the loading station.
Many beverage bottling plants are designed to operate at very high speeds in order to process as many bottles as possible in as short a time as possible. Modern high-speed, high-capacity beverage bottling plants can process huge numbers of bottles in a relatively short time, such as approximately 40,000 to 70,000 bottles per hour. What is meant by “process” is completing at least the acts of cleaning the empty bottles, filling the bottles with a liquid beverage, closing the filled bottles, labeling the bottles, and packaging the bottles for transport to sellers or distributors. With containers and in particular with bottles that have typical geometric container characteristics on their outer surface such as, for example, sealing surfaces, ornaments, embossing, raised characters etc., it is necessary to apply the labels with a high degree of accuracy with reference to these container characteristics. That means that on a labeling machine to which the containers are fed in an upright position although in a purely random orientation, these containers must first be oriented so that they are in an orientation that is as accurate as possible with reference to their container characteristics. Only then can the at least one label be applied to the respective container and then pressed or brushed onto it.
For this orientation in similar devices of the prior art, container receptacles, e.g. in the form of turntables, are provided on a rotor of a labeling machine. Each container receptacle can be rotated by means of its own servo motor around a vertical axis and thus also around the axis of the respective container located on the container receptacle. Specifically, the prior art also describes the control of the container receptacles for the orientation of the containers as a function of an image analysis or camera system, with which the respective position or orientation of at least one typical geometric container characteristic that is used for the orientation is measured as an actual value and this data is then compared in an electronic system with image data or parameters stored there that represent the specified value, and based on the result, the servo motor of the container receptacle required for the necessary position correction is actuated (EP 1 205 388). On one model of this device of the prior art, the camera system has four cameras that are located one after another along the path of movement of the container receptacles in the direction of rotation of the rotor. Each camera thereby scans a portion of the periphery of the container, and namely each camera scans 100° of this periphery in an overlapping manner on containers that rotate around their container axis. On the basis of the actual image data supplied by the cameras, a correction of the rotational position of the container receptacles is then made and the container is oriented with reference to its typical geometric container characteristic.